(Newser) -
The arrest of a St. Louis-area man charged with eight counts of sexual misconduct involving a child younger than 15 has its roots in Nova Scotia, where an undercover officer was performing a simple demonstration. The officer, who is a member of the provincial Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) unit, was...
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Turns out he was just remarking on news articles, documentary

(Newser) -
In a series of tweets Monday , Elijah Wood rolled his comments about pedophiles in Hollywood way, way back. "The Sunday Times interviewed me about my latest film but the story became about something else entirely. It prompted a number of false and misleading headlines," Wood tweeted. "I...
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Ex-NBC host's Kickstarter campaign let him film first set of busts in Connecticut

(Newser) -
For four days earlier this month, a temporary tenant took up residence in Fairfield, Conn., someone who probably would have been familiar to many of the locals if he weren't holed up in a house with police, waiting for potential sex offenders. It was Chris Hansen, ex-host of NBC'...
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'Operation Broken Heart' reels in former sheriff's deputy, US Army soldier

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"The dirty old man stereotype no longer applies." That was the pronouncement of ICE Homeland Security agent Claude Arnold yesterday, during a press conference that revealed the results of "Operation Broken Heart." Authorities announced that more than 275 people were arrested in May as part of...
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27-year-old charged with statutory rape

(Newser) -
A 27-year-old man who met a 14-year-old girl online and ended up moving into her closet for five days could face up to life in prison on charges including statutory rape. Police say that after communicating with the girl on social media for a few weeks, North Carolina man Jarred...
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Organization warns that 'webcam child sex tourism' is on the rise

(Newser) -
Dutch children's rights activists have come up with a novel way to catch online predators: They created a very realistic computer-generated 10-year-old girl. Researchers from the organization, Terre des Hommes, then posed as "Sweetie," who was supposedly from the Philippines, and logged onto Internet chat rooms. During...
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18 signs now peppered throughout Bradford County

(Newser) -
Police in Bradford County, Florida, have taken a highly visible step in making sure no sexual predator goes unnoticed: Officials there last week erected bold red signs in front of the homes of 18 registered sexual predators. GTN News reports that the signs are permitted under a Florida statute that...
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Police say a staggering 450 victims have come forward

(Newser) -
When allegations of sex abuse surfaced against the once-beloved British entertainer Jimmy Savile, police initially thought there were 25 to 50 victims, reports AP . A three-month police investigation out today shows that Savile, who died in 2011 at age 84, was a much bigger monster than that, reports the Guardian...
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Skout says it did its best to install safeguards

(Newser) -
Location-based flirting app Skout has suspended its service for minors after the arrests of three men accused of raping young people they met by posing as teenagers. Execs at the company, which set up the service for 13- to 17-year-olds last year after discovering that large numbers of minors were...
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Just 15 men have been successfully committed, while others wait years

(Newser) -
The Justice Department has sought to indefinitely detain 136 "sexually dangerous" sex offenders under a controversial law enacted six years ago that allows them to be locked up for good if three things are proven: the crime was child molestation or an act of sexual violence, the offender has...
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'I feel like I could just go away and never come back,' says Faye Gibson, 13

(Newser) -
A 13-year-old girl relentlessly bullied at her Denver school posted a heart-wrenching YouTube video pleading with viewers to tell her if she's pretty or ugly. Some of the comments have been even more brutal than her treatment at school. "It hurt me to see those comments about my...
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Said reporter posing as girl harassed by men

(Newser) -
Posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook, a Daily Mail reporter was bombarded by messages from 20- to 40-year-old men wanting "to perform a sex act"—only it was really another social networking site, and Facebook is livid and threatening to sue over the misreported story . The author...
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Alleged Jaycee Dugard kidnapper pointed to 19-year clean record

(Newser) -
Phillip Garrido complained in 2008 about having to wear a monitoring device because he had not been in trouble with the law for 19 years—nearly as long as he allegedly held Jaycee Dugard captive. Some 120 pages of newly released parole records paint a portrait of a convicted rapist...
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Phony 'friend' gains access to drinking photos

(Newser) -
Wisconsin college student Adam Bauer should represent a cautionary tale for Facebook users under 21, or otherwise on the wrong side of the law: be careful what you post, and whom you friend. Shortly after accepting a request from an unfamiliar, “good-looking girl,” Bauer was invited to the...
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Pa. man, convicted of soliciting child sex, says he was set up

(Newser) -
From Pennsylvania detective Michele Deery’s perspective the story goes like this: Fishing for sexual predators, she logged online posing as a mother who wanted to find someone to have sex with her two young daughters. She soon found a nearby man who, without too much prompting, offered to have...
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(Newser) -
Tony Alamo, a one-time street preacher who became an outfitter to the stars and fought the federal government over claims he underpaid followers for church work, was convicted today in Arkansas of taking five girls across state lines for sex. The jury of nine men and three women found Alamo...
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Company analyzing data for MySpace says of 90K booted, minimum 8K back online

(Newser) -
MySpace grabbed headlines today when it announced that it had kicked 90,000 registered sex offenders off the site over the past 2 years. Where did they all go? Many went to Facebook, says Sentinel, the security firm that roots out such offenders for MySpace. “We found over 8,...
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(Newser) -
Remember all the hoopla about sexual predators on MySpace? Well … never mind. A task force created by 49 state attorneys general finds no significant problem with minors being propositioned by adults on social-networking sites, the Raleigh News & Observer reports, with widespread fears to the contrary a “moral...
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